


painkillers

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: #CousyComfort, Confessions, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Pre-Relationship, Romance, Subtext, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 03:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14535342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Coulson's mere presence helps soothe the pain.Written for the #CousyComfort challenge at johnsonandcoulson.com





	painkillers

He looks at her hands like he wants to be angry with her but he can’t. There was no helping it, the slightly purple bruises a reminder that she went too far, but there was no helping it. She always remembers how much it hurts, when she pushes her body past it limits, but funnily enough - there must be something wrong with her - the memory of it doesn’t make her hesitate the next time. All Inhumans have their limits, even though she figured out some time ago (or rather someone else figured it out for her) that the way she had messed up with her transition, wearing those gloves SHIELD made for her, had made her natural limitations stricter, gave her a handicap she wouldn’t have had. Daisy can’t say she resents it that much - her kind of powers, she’d rather not have them full force.

She thinks about all this and doesn’t say as Coulson visits her while she rests. She also doesn’t tell him that his mere presence make the wounds hurt a little less, the way he gets her out of her own head.

He sits by her side, quietly, in a way that makes Daisy less restless, even as she is still finding a way to sit up, a way to some activity, to helpfulness, she doesn’t get to just lie around and lick her wounds.

But the world is not ending at this moment, and the mission she completed, the mission she got wounded for, was a successful, so Coulson smiles at her in an understanding way, but he still won’t let her get up. He points at her arms.

“The doctor said you should rest them,” he says.

Daisy scoffs.

“He’s new around here, what does he know? Are we sure he’s been to medical school?”

“Yes, we are,” Coulson replies. “To a very good one.”

She rolls her eyes. “It was a joke, Coulson.”

“So was my comment. I was going for dry humor.”

Okay, that makes her smile.

Coulson takes advantage of the pause to pour a glass of water for her. 

“Thank you,” she says.

She has just woken up from an uncomfortable nap (she wonders if Coulson came by earlier and found her sleeping - it would be like him to casually check up on her, but not be overbearing about it) and her mouth feels like parchment.

She can grab stuff, her hands are not immobilized. It just hurts.

“How much does it hurt?” Coulson asks, like reading her thoughts. It’s a thing he does - sometimes it’s annoying, sometimes is a bit upsetting (she works very hard not to let her thoughts and feelings come to the surface), but mostly she likes it.

“Not that much,” she lies. “It’s fine.”

He lets out a long breath and takes Daisy’s hands in his, very carefully.

Because he does this, because he’s able to reach her in one single movement, Daisy realizes he’s been sitting pretty close to her. Funny, it didn’t seem like that. Then again she tries to remember a time when she had felt Coulson was crowding her and she comes up empty.

His fingers don’t seem to apply any pressure at all on her bruises, like they weight nothing. His skin even feels a bit cold - or maybe hers is a tad hotter than usual - and the effect is nicely soothing on her injuries. There’s also how careful Coulson is, something that is not surprising at all, but that every time it happens makes Daisy hold her breath for a moment, checking it’s real. Careful is different from soft, even though Coulson is both those things. He cups Daisy’s hands inside his palms, and gently pries her fingers apart, like he is checking the wounds himself, looking very intently. After a while he seems satisfied and threads his own fingers with hers, again the light weightlessness of it all, making sure the posture is comfortable for her.

Then Daisy realizes he was actually gathering himself as well, choosing his words with care - Daisy likes that too, Coulson knows words are important, sharper than people imagine.

“My mom was a nurse,” he starts. Daisy freezes, surprised at the sudden change of subject, surprised at the new choice of subject. His voice becomes warm and intimate as he goes on talking. “One day she had to bring me with her to the hospital. I can’t remember why, maybe school was closed for some reason. I was thirteen or fourteen. It was… it was so strange to see her work. You don’t think of your own parents as being professional or efficient. You don’t think they are good at what they do outside being your parents. But my mom was good at what she did, very good.”

“I can believe that,” Daisy says - for even though she doesn’t know anything about Coulson’s mother outside the stark facts in his file, the same one she had to study years ago, and though he has never spoken about her in Daisy’s presence, she can easily imagine the kind of woman who would raise someone like Coulson on her own.

He nods, looking grateful for the comment.

“I was with her as she was doing her rounds, and there was this very young nurse she was showing the ropes to,” Coulson goes on. “They were asking this woman who had some pain in her abdomen how much it hurt her. To put the pain on a scale from 1 to 10. You know?”

“Yeah, doctors do that, I hate that,” Daisy mutters, unguarded for a moment by Coulson’s expression when he remembers his mother, the information slipping away from Daisy.

“This woman said her pain was about a 5 on the scale. My mother took the young nurse aside and told her to write down the pain as an 8, because women always underestimate how much pain they’re in. She also told her that men usually rate their pain at 11, when asked.”

He and Daisy share a chuckle at that.

“Sounds like you were brought up by a staunch feminist,” Daisy points out. And really, that explains a lot of things about how Coulson deals with women.

“I never thought about it that way,” he says. “But you’re probably right.”

Daisy knows why he has told him this story of course.

She looks down at her fingers. Purple-ish and old-looking and ugly next to Coulson’s. Or so they seem to her. She has always liked Coulson’s hand. They have history carved on them, but they’re also soft to the touch, like rocks on the beach, after the ocean has lapped at them for ages, smoothing them over. 

“My mother used to say hands were the hardest to heal,” he adds. Daisy feels his index skim over the ridge of her knuckles. “She also used to say that hands were important, because contained people’s gentleness.”

Daisy almost gasps. Like those words are a key that unlocks so many things about Coulson. And about the way he has always acted around Daisy. 

Tentatively she holds on to his touch in return, holding the hands that are holding hers.

Like saying, _I understand_.

“Thank you,” she says, throat dry with sudden emotion. “For telling me about your mom.”

Coulson nods.

“But it wasn’t a story about me, it was a story about you,” he tells her. “Please, let me get you some painkillers.”

Daisy brushes her thumb against the hand that’s holding hers.

“Okay.”

Coulson nods again. It seems to her there’s a whole language in the way they nod to each other, whole conversations that require no words.

“Daisy,” he says, still not moving from her side.

“It’s fine,” she tells him, more convincingly this time. “I have superpowers, and anyone with superpowers is going to push themselves too hard at some point.”

“To protect people, to save people,” Coulson says. “You were pushing yourself too hard for that way before you got superpowers.”

Daisy blushes a bit. Ever since she met him Coulson has always talked like she’s some superhero or something. It makes her almost believe it.

“I would like to tell you more things about my mother,” Coulson interrupts her thoughts, speaking up again. “About other stuff, too. I don’t want to be so closed off - not to you. And I don’t want you to be closed off with me either.”

She thinks she knows what he’s asking.

She also hopes there’s something else behind what he’s asking.

(The way he’s still holding her hands, like he can’t bear to stop touching her, makes Daisy think that for once in her life maybe she’s not such an idiot for hoping)

“Okay,” she replies.

“Okay?”

She nods.

She looks down at their hands entwined. Coulson’s touch is comforting - hell, it’s the most comforting thing she’s ever felt, since the first time she hugged him all those years, feeling immediately better despite the awkwardness of the moment - but it’s not enough. And that’s okay.

“So yeah, actually, this hurts. It hurts _a lot_ ,” she tells him, and despite the admission Coulson smiles, relieved that she is able to say it out loud. “I want many painkillers, all of them. And also food. And let me sleep and don’t wake me up unless the world is actually ending. You’re the second on command, you deal with it.”

Daisy feels light-hearted, kind of drunk, from actually saying all this out loud.

Coulson gives her hands a little squeeze. The way he looks at her seems new, she doesn’t think he’s ever looked at her that way before. 

“All of that can be arranged,” he tells her.

“Good.”

“Painkillers first,” he decides.

But he still doesn’t let go of Daisy’s hand.

Like he _really_ can’t.

He stays there, sitting across her, looking at her.

That’s okay too, Daisy decides, since Coulson’s touch is her own particular form of painkillers.


End file.
